


Under the Jewelled Sky

by regshoe



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Alternate Universe - 18th century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, Highway robbery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16087442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe
Summary: Bunny Manders, an indifferently successful writer of the mid-eighteenth century, is forced by debt to flee town for a quiet corner of the country. Here he discovers an interesting local story, and a chance to solve his problems by turning to a life of crime.Or, what if A. J. Raffles had lived a century or so earlier, when the ideal of a dashing, romantic villain was not the gentleman thief, but the highwayman?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thinking about Raffles while watching that Adam and the Ants video turned out to be an excellent idea, actually...

The story has, I am told, become something of a local legend in the years since it took place. Perhaps its curiosity is increased by how much remains unknown; yet I am uniquely positioned to give a true account of the events in question, and I think that, for the sake of history, some such account ought to exist. Here, then, I shall set down the true story of the Gentleman Highwayman.

I must, of course, be vague about names and places; those who know the story will recognise them, and those who do not, will not need to. It was, then, in the year 17—, and in a place not so very far from London, yet remote enough in its way. I had come to this district as a fugitive. My life in town might have been sustained on a larger fortune than my own, but my judgement was sadly unequal to the task of keeping within my real means; and, to make a long and painful story short, it was from the shadow of the Marshalsea that I fled with what little money I had left, to a place where I thought I might lie low for a little while and regroup my resources.

The day I arrived in that secluded neighbourhood comes clearly to my remembrance, even now. It was a dull, grey day in autumn, and the clouds lay heavy and unmoving over the land. A somewhat half-hearted breeze lifted the straggling leaves of the trees, which stood at irregular intervals along the edge of the rough unenclosed heath over which the road passed. It was as wild and lonely a spot as I had seen on my journey so far, with no sign of man or beast in all the expanse of bleak brown heather, and brought to my mind, accustomed as I was to the bustling crowds of London, unpleasant thoughts of the dangers supposed to threaten lonely travellers in such places. I shivered a little, though the day was not cold, before turning back to the road ahead of me, setting my thoughts determinedly upon my purposed destination.

I reached the village, without incident, in the early evening. Out of my ruined fortune I had retained enough to pay for my lodging at the local inn, whither I now repaired; and, having deposited my few possessions in my room, returned downstairs, where I hoped that company and good cheer might do something to dispel the gloomy mood into which I had fallen on my solitary journey. I found the room as warm, bright and full of talk and laughter as I could wish; despite the inn’s rather lonely situation, standing a little apart from the village to which it belonged, it was a regular meeting-place for the locals, besides the travellers who stayed there. Seating myself in a cosy spot near the fire, I soon fell into conversation with a local yeoman-farmer, who seemed quite pleased to have a new person to talk to.

‘What is it that brings you all the way from London, to this out-of-the-way little place?’ he said—with no unfriendly intention, but the inquiry made me wince nonetheless.

‘I am an author,’ I said. ‘I wanted somewhere quiet to work on my writing.’ It was not untrue—I had, in fact, begun writing a book, on which I intended to spend some time during this holiday—and would do for an acceptable answer.

‘A man of letters!’ The farmer looked suitably impressed. ‘What sorts of things do you write about, then?’

‘Oh, it is an adventure story,’ I said, happy to discuss this safe and interesting subject further, and was about to continue when my new friend interrupted me.

‘Adventure! Oho, well—we have plenty of that round here.’

His expression clearly invited the question, and I obliged: ‘What do you mean?’

He grinned, and leaned his elbow on the arm of his ancient chair. ‘You didn’t see anything strange on the road today? Nothing out of the ordinary?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I had quite an easy journey, all things considered, although the prospect was rather gloomy at times.’

‘Hmm. Well, you were lucky—or perhaps an author simply hasn’t gold enough to interest him, begging your pardon. You see,’ he addressed me in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘the roads in these parts are haunted—haunted by the most terrible highwayman the country ever knew! Not a man can travel with his riches but he is robbed of them. No one knows his name or who he might be; no one sees him, except those he robs; he might as well be a ghost, for all we know.’

At this chilling point, we were interrupted by the arrival of the barmaid with my supper. ‘You frightening the stranger with tales of our Gentleman Highwayman, Bill?’ she said, grinning at my companion, and then, to me, ‘Don’t mind him, sir. He’s far too fond of a good story—there have been robberies hereabouts, but the man isn’t some sort of ghost. I dare say it’s not so much more dangerous than any of England’s roads.’

I mumbled something in acknowledgement of this reassurance, and set about my food with rather conflicted thoughts.

The meal improved my mood considerably, however, and a little later on I was able to regard these tales about highway robbers as an author looking on a fascinating story, rather than as a traveller looking on a terrible danger. I became so bold as to ask the barmaid, as she cleared away the plate, how I might find out more about these adventures.

‘You’ll want to talk to Bess.’ She nodded towards a tall, bright-faced girl at the other side of the room, speaking to the landlord. ‘She knows everything that’s gone on since the man began his crimes here; seems to think the profession is romantic, for some reason.’

*

I did go and talk to Bess, who was the landlord’s daughter, the very next morning. She introduced herself to me with a polite though rather distant manner; but her dark eyes lit up at the mention of the local stories of which I wished to know more, and she told me in some detail all that was known about this terrible highwayman.

‘You came that way yesterday, of course,’ she said, as we strolled along in the direction of the village; I was enjoying the clear, cool air and the peaceful stillness, so unlike my late abode in town. ‘That big, open heath—you’ll have seen how the place is a perfect spot for a robber. Well, for the last few months it has been exactly that. We hear a lot of the stories at the inn, of course—fairly strange, some of them are.’

‘What sort of strange stories?’ I was really curious now; and, remembering how I was safely established at the inn, and that in any case I had nothing in my possession worth stealing, I had lost all my dread of the previous day.

‘Well,’ said Bess, ‘you heard how he’s called the _Gentleman_ Highwayman. He’s always finely dressed, like a gentleman, and everyone agrees he’s terribly polite and courteous to those he steals from—another MacLaine, father says—in any case, certainly no common thief. Sometimes he’ll go as if to meet travellers on the road, and ride with them a little way, chatting about the news from London—and then, when they get to the loneliest part of the heath, just where you were yesterday, he’ll suddenly turn on them with his pistols and bid them stand and deliver—’

‘—Their money or their lives,’ I finished, matching her keen smile. ‘Well, it certainly sounds dramatic.’

Over the following days, we saw each other often about the inn, and had always plenty to discuss. Bess was a spirited, sensible girl—quite sensible in everything but her fondness for these rather outlandish stories; but I, eager as I was to hear the details, could hardly criticise her for that. From her I heard all that those unfortunate persons who had become victims of the Gentleman Highwayman had had to tell of their adventures.

‘About two months ago,’ she said one day, ‘the magistrate arrested someone who they all thought was the very man; he’d shot someone in a quarrel near the market town, and when they took him in they noticed how he fit the travellers’ descriptions. Well, the very day that they hanged him, the magistrate was riding out on business, and _the highwayman appeared_ —told him they wouldn’t get him that easily, took his gold watch, and rode off over the heath!’

It was a bright, crisp morning a week or so after my arrival; Bess and I were sitting in the inn’s little garden, enjoying the autumn sunshine. We had become fast friends; I believe her father had begun to entertain hopes that we might become something more, but there was little chance of that with me, and Bess seemed no more inclined towards the idea than I was.

‘What has he done since then?’ I said.

‘We’ve heard nothing of him for a month,’ she said, grinning. ‘He does that from time to time, just vanishes. I think’—here she lowered her voice to a whisper, though there was no one else in the garden to hear us—‘it’s because he is exactly what he seems to be: a gentleman. He makes his money holding up carriages out here, runs off to London to spend it all on fine clothes and gaming, and comes back here when he runs out.’

‘Well,’ I said, impressed at her inventiveness, though not seriously believing the idea, ‘I know several such fellows in town—people who will run off into the country all of a sudden, and we never hear anything from them for months. What a joke if your highwayman turned out to be one of them!’

Bess laughed. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I hope they never find out who he really is. It’s a far better story that way.’

*

That very evening, however, saw the end of the curious silence which our thief had kept for so long.

It was shortly after sunset; I was enjoying my supper; the company were sitting around the fire, and Bess was polishing glasses behind the bar, when the contented quiet of the room was suddenly broken by the violent flinging open of the outer door. All heads turned to look at the newcomer who stood framed against the night. He was a tall, heavily-built man, forty or fifty years of age, and with every sign about his person of some great agitation: his rich clothes were flung into disarray, and his face bore an expression of mingled fear and rage.

‘Is this a place of civilisation that I have reached at last?’ were his first words, spoken in a refined accent but a tone otherwise entirely in harmony with his appearance.

Bess had already moved towards him. ‘I should hope so, sir,’ she said. ‘May we—’

The gentleman ignored her. ‘I,’ he proclaimed to the room in general, ‘have been robbed—robbed upon the road not two miles from here! In such a place as this, under the rule of King George, for upstanding citizens going about their honest business to be molested by such a villain!’

He looked as if he were going to continue, but at this point Bess’s father, having heard the shouting, entered, and endeavoured to placate the gentleman traveller, offering a seat by the fireside and a mug of ale. As the company already seated began to mutter amongst themselves, and to offer sympathy to the newcomer for a fate which they were eager to explain, another figure entered by the still-open outer door—a little man in shabby clothing—and took up, largely unnoticed, a station at the back of the room.

At length, the gentleman, soothed by food, drink and understanding company, became calm enough to relate his story in more detail and in a more rational manner. It was much the same as those I had already heard from Bess, though all the more thrilling from coming at first hand: he had been robbed of a set of very fine gold rings, amongst various other trinkets and a considerable amount of money. His audience listened attentively; not least Sir Edmund A—, who, having arrived at the inn the previous day with his usual complement of valuable possessions, was somewhat alarmed at finding the state of things apparently so dangerous for such as himself. My friend Bill had just put a question about the ruffian’s appearance, when I was interrupted from listening by a tap on the shoulder. I turned, in some surprise, to see the small man who had entered so unobtrusively a few minutes ago.

‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but I have a message for a Mr Manders, and I’m told that you are he.’

A pool of icy dread began to form in my stomach. Was I found at last? I tried to reassure myself that it might be some perfectly innocent message from a friend, while recollecting that I had told no one where I was going when I left town. The man handed me a letter, and I, desiring some privacy, retired to my room to read it.

It was—to put the thing briefly—a confirmation of my worst fears. A London acquaintance, in whose house I had lost shameful amounts at the card-table, had heard of my disappearance with half my debt to him still unpaid, and had (how, I never knew) tracked me down. The letter was a warning. He intended to follow in person, to receive his payment or otherwise compel me to return to town and justice. I was not to think of fleeing, for the messenger whom I had met downstairs was in his pay and would prevent my going. I was trapped.

I placed the letter on my writing-table, locked the door and began to pace back and forth. My thoughts raced at such a speed that I could barely follow them; but, after keeping this up for so long that the muffled sounds of conversation and laughter from downstairs had died away to silence, I was no nearer a solution than when I first read the letter—and, if possible, in even more of a panic. I could think only of the necessity of immediate escape, somehow, before I could be caught.

I crossed to the little window, testing to see how wide it would open—yes, wide enough for me to climb through. My room was on the first floor; unwilling to risk a jump from the window, I leaned out and felt along the wall below. The rough stone was uneven enough to afford footholds: I would climb.

With a few things stashed in a bag, the fateful letter in my pocket, and my features hidden by a hooded cloak, I made my escape.

I had no clear idea of where I was going; I only knew that I must get away from the inn at all costs. Keeping away from the roads and the chance of being observed, I set out across the fields, stumbling over clods of earth and practically leaping over gates in my desperation. Looking up as I paused for breath, I saw a little wood on the horizon, picked out by the glow of the starlight. Perhaps I could hide out there for the night, and make a more definite decision in the morning.

As I approached the wood, I slowed down; my mind was already beginning to clear a little, partly through having put some distance between myself and the place where my doom awaited me, but partly also from the wonderful sharp stillness of the night air. As I climbed the wood-bank, I paused a moment to look up at the stars, glittering silently above. Their light was so bright and steady that it took me a moment to realise, when I lowered my eyes back towards the tangle of branches before me, that there was another light there: a warm, reddish light, flickering between the trees.

I was not the only person to have sought this place as a shelter tonight.

Quite why I did not turn and flee, I do not know. Perhaps it was some premonition; or else simply a sense that, in my desperate condition, anyone else who felt the need to spend the night hiding in a remote wood was more likely to be my ally than otherwise. In any case, I continued forward, making towards the glow of firelight amongst the trees.

I stepped into a little clearing, glad of the cheering sight of a fire burning merrily away; I had no time for further reflection, however, before a voice said, ‘Don’t move.’

The man stepped towards me, emerging with the softness of a shadow from the darkness surrounding the clearing. He was a fearsome figure in the firelight, and the pistol which he aimed at my head with a terribly steady hand kept me frozen to the spot. As he came closer, however, and with his other hand pushed back the hood that had covered his face…

‘Raffles?’

He stopped still; leaned towards me, as though a little unsure; then slowly lowered the pistol, and said my own name.

‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ My terror had given way to such a mixture of relief and incredulity that it was said with almost a laugh.

‘I could ask the same of you!’ he said, but without smiling.

‘I—’ There seemed little point in hiding the truth from him. ‘Well, I suppose you know why I left town.’

‘I could hazard a guess. Come, Bunny, sit down,’ he said, gesturing towards a blanket spread on the ground by the fire. I sat, and he took up his own position on a fallen log. Calming down from the rather fraught circumstances of our first meeting, I was able to take in the surroundings. A horse grazed unconcernedly on the far side of the clearing, and near the fire were several small bags; these were rough-looking enough, and yet the clothes Raffles wore were as fine as any he might wear in town.

At this point, some explanation may be required. A. J. Raffles was, I suppose, a London acquaintance of mine; we had been at school together, and he was now rather a well-known figure in town, a pre-eminent member of the London Cricket Club and a fixture at every society party worth the name. The incongruity of his present situation continued to baffle me as I explained my own sad story.

‘By coming here,’ I finished, ‘I had hoped to escape, but I have failed. A man to whom I owe money has found me, and is threatening me. I ran; I could think of nothing else to do.’

‘A difficult problem indeed,’ he said, regarding me with a rather curious expression. ‘I suppose you’ve really no money with which to placate him, even if it were not enough to pay in full?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘except what allows me to live decently at the inn. But, Raffles, you haven’t told me how you came to be out here in the middle of the night. Are you travelling? Why not put up at the inn?—it can’t be more than two miles from here.’

He ignored the question. ‘I may be able to help you, Bunny. I’ve recently come into some money, you might say, and I certainly wouldn’t begrudge using a small part of it to help out a friend in need.’ He actually reached over and picked up one of the bags that had lain on the ground by the log, and began working at the fastenings.

‘Oh, I couldn’t accept charity—’ I began, flustered at this sudden benevolence.

‘I didn’t say anything about charity,’ he said, with a queer smile. ‘Oh, Bunny, need you still ask how I came to be camping out here? Are you still as innocent as you were in our schooldays?’

I said nothing. Between the remote campsite, and the pistols, and the sudden windfall which he was so ready to give away, I was beginning to have an idea.

He went on, ‘There was a commotion at the inn earlier this evening, I’ll wager. A man arrived there who’d been robbed of his gold rings—I suppose you saw him?’ I nodded, still silent. He had got the bag open at last; he reached inside it and took something out. He held out his open hand to me, and there in the firelight were the loveliest set of gold rings I ever saw.

For some moments I remained silent. The awful truth left me incapable of any definite, immediate course of action. I felt sure that I could not accept any money come by in such a way, and yet these high moral principles were difficult to sustain with the means of deliverance from my peril literally within my grasp… The peculiar look with which Raffles was still watching me, half his face illuminated by the flickering red light and the other half obscured in shadow, seemed to divine all these thoughts and more.

At last I gathered my faculties sufficiently to speak. ‘You want to buy my silence, I suppose. Well, I think—’

‘No, Bunny!’ He looked a little hurt. ‘I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. If you want to run off and report me to the magistrate, you may do just that; but I don’t believe you will.’ His eyes were brighter than ever, and their gaze never left mine for a moment.

‘What do you want, then?’ I said. In my heart, I believe, my resolution was already made.

He sighed. ‘It was a fine little hoard I picked up today, Bunny’—at this point he began taking gold coins out of the bag, weighing them in his hand—‘but it won’t be enough to tide me over the next season in town, especially if I’m to donate part of it to pay off your debts. No, I must find something to add to it; and I believe there is someone staying at your inn who might be the very man to provide it. You know who I mean?’ I nodded reluctantly; it could only be Sir Edmund, he who had been so alarmed at Raffles’s last victim’s story earlier that evening. ‘What I want is for you to find out when he plans to leave the place and which way he will go, and pass this information on to me. But I don’t mean to require it as payment for this,’ and he started to hand the coins to me. ‘It’s a lot to ask of a law-abiding man who has merely accepted a gift from a questionable source, and I shall be quite willing to regard this simply as a case of Robin Hood benevolence and say no more of the matter. Will that be enough?’ he added as he gave me another coin, with a little smile that went straight to my overburdened conscience.

‘Plenty,’ I murmured. I thought of the great wrong I was, in any case, doing by accepting this much; I though of the obligation I would, in any case, consider myself to be under; I thought, I believe, of other things besides. Finally I said, ‘I will tell you his plans. I am damned already by taking this money, knowing full well where it comes from; I may as well be damned for a greater thing! I will help you.’

He raised his eyebrows a little at this outburst, but only said, quietly, ‘Thank you, Bunny.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title, along with a few other details, is from Alfred Noyes's poem 'The Highwayman', which is one of the best romantic highwayman stories and was a major inspiration for this fic.
> 
> The name Gentleman Highwayman, which I’ve given to Raffles here, was a nickname of the real robber James MacLaine, who along with his partner in crime William Plunkett was responsible for a series of highway robberies around London in the 1740s. He was apparently famous for being civil and gentlemanlike to his victims, and was loath to use violence.


	2. Chapter 2

I sought out my creditor’s agent in the morning and gave him my ill-gotten gold. He seemed surprised, but accepted it without a word, and departed immediately for London. For the rest of the morning I fell to brooding on the situation in which I was left, becoming more pessimistic the longer I thought on it. This was, of course, hardly the only financial trouble facing me in town, though certainly one of the worst and, at present, the only one which had followed me here; and yet, if one man knew of my location, word might get around… Such thoughts were my constant companions at this time. I could be easy in my mind for the moment, but by no means for good.

That evening I again joined in the general after-supper gossip, attempting if I could to discover what was known about Sir Edmund’s plans. For some time these efforts were unsuccessful; the baronet himself was not present, and although the rest of the company amused themselves greatly by speculating on what he might be doing in the neighbourhood and where he might be going next, none of them seemed to have any definite information. A little later, however, Sir Edmund appeared in the room. He held himself aloof from the general conversation, as was no doubt very proper, but he fell into a discussion with the landlord as the latter helped Bess to fetch his food, and, by withdrawing myself from a fascinating but irrelevant exchange with Bill, I was able to overhear them.

‘I believe that you, my good man,’ Sir Edmund was saying, ‘might be interested to hear the plan I have devised for tomorrow morning, should this famed highwayman put in an appearance.’

I tried to move closer to them without making myself conspicuous; this was clearly more than I had hoped for.

‘Oh, yes, sir, and what’s that?’ said the landlord.

The baronet rubbed his hands together, clearly pleased with himself for what he was about to relate. ‘I intend,’ he said, ‘to place my most valuable items, of which I have several, into the care of one of the servants travelling with me, a perfectly trustworthy man. Should the robber attack, I have instructed him to flee—as if out of cowardice, but actually bearing my property away to safety! Then, when I have handed over a few trifles to the thief—telling him, quite truthfully, that they are all I have—I shall continue on my journey, where my servant will presently join me. Now, what do you think of that?’

‘A very wise plan, sir,’ said the landlord, nodding. ‘Let’s just hope you don’t need it, eh?’

At this I exchanged a smile with Bess—who, poor innocent, little understood the full meaning of my own look.

Later that night I slipped out of my room by the same way as before, and set off along the road. On a hill about half a mile from the village, there was an old ruined cottage—a dilapidated place, half tumbled stone and half ivy—and thither I directed my steps. The sky was again clear, and it was colder than it had been; already the world was turning towards winter, and the little hill as I approached it was a dark shadow against the stars.

I found my way up to the cottage with some little difficulty. There was no light in any of its windows, but Raffles would not have risked showing one, visible as it must have been for miles around, so I was not surprised—though somewhat startled—to hear his voice as I entered by the empty doorway.

‘Stay outside, Bunny,’ he said. ‘There’s a little more light out there.’

I obeyed, and he followed me out into the small patch of rough ground, overgrown with brambles, that must once have been the cottager’s garden. In a few words I related to him what I had learnt.

‘Hmm,’ he said when I had finished. ‘He wastes no time—and he’s anticipated me! A wise man. We shall simply have to make our plans quickly.’

Watching him as he spoke, I seemed to see him, as he was now, for the first time. He stood in the shadow of the trees, shrouded in his dark cloak, his lace cravat brilliantly white beneath it; with a pistol at one side and a rapier at the other, and just enough starlight above to illuminate the keen and cunning expression of his face beneath its cocked-hat, he looked every bit the highwayman whom one reads about in the London papers. Usually such a description adorns the report of his hanging. 

The magnitude of what I had done, and was doing, seemed to dawn upon me all at once with that sight. I had turned accessory to a terrible crime; England’s roads were a little more dangerous this night, because of me. I ought to have been appalled, and knew it—yet I was not; quite the opposite, in fact. I wished to do more than I had done. Perhaps it was the almost romantic fascination of the thing—the thought that, by exchanging the risk of the debtors’ prison for that of the gallows, I would do a cleaner and a more honest thing than I ever had in town. The fact that, morally, it was a far worse one barely seemed to figure in my reflections. And all through my speech, Raffles had once again been watching me intently, with that curious look which I still could not read—save that, this time, there might have been something in it of admiration.

In any case, my next words were, ‘One more thing, Raffles. I don’t mean for this to stop at my giving you information. I mean to help you—to come with you tomorrow.’

Raffles did not tell me not to think of such a thing; he simply raised his eyebrows and quietly asked why.

‘After you’ve done so much to help me,’ I said, stubbornly, ‘it seems the decent thing to do, although it’s a very wrong one. Look, can I actually be of any help to you tomorrow? If I cannot, I will think of it no more.’ For I was already half ashamed of my rash resolution.

He was silent for some moments. The reason I had given was not the real one; I knew it, and once again I had the sense that he was looking straight through my dissimulation and discerning my real thoughts as easily as if I had written them down for him to read at leisure.

Finally he said, in an altered tone, ‘I didn’t think you would do so much as that, Bunny. Yes, you can help me.’ And he named the place and time the next morning where I was to meet him. A last reassurance that he would tell me his plan then, once he had worked it out in full, and then he departed, pulling his cloak around him and vanishing into the night as though he had never been there.

*

The following morning dawned wild and windy. Low, grey clouds scudded across a pale sky, casting light and shade in quick alterations over the ground below; the trees, caught by the wind, strained at their roots as if to follow them, and what leaves still remained on the branches became casualties of the fight. It was onto this scene that Sir Edmund’s carriage, accompanied by two servants on horseback, appeared, struggling against the wind.

The carriage at last found some shelter on a stretch of road where the trees grew quite close down to the track on either side. It was a desolate spot, made more so by the increasingly grey and wintry aspect of the woods, and the coachman urged his horses onwards so as to be through the trees and out onto the open part of the high road as soon as possible.

They were not soon enough. As the carriage rounded a bend, a figure on horseback sprang from the trees and, brandishing a pistol, forced the coachman to stop.

One of the servants gave a cry of fear—real enough, I imagine. The other, with a somewhat exaggerated shout of terror, leapt from his horse and darted away into the wood. The highwayman ignored him, as well he might, and ordered his master to ‘Stand and deliver!’.

I was waiting, silent, masked and frankly terrified, halfway up a small alder a short way into the wood. The servant made things easier for me by choosing my side of the road in his flight. As soon as he had got near my tree—far enough from the carriage that, what with the commotion going on there, we would not be heard—I jumped down, ran up behind him and, with the advantage of surprise on my side, tackled him to the ground.

‘I don’t want to be unpleasant about this,’ I said, no doubt made a little voluble by my fear. ‘I know you have the jewels. Hand them over, and we’ll hear no more about it.’ Raffles had given me one of his pistols, and the sight of it was quite enough to induce the man to give up his master’s treasures. He handed me a little velvet bag; I checked quickly to see that it did indeed contain what I sought, placed it inside my coat, and waved him away. ‘But don’t return to the carriage, or I’ll make you regret it!’ I added, attempting to make my voice suitably fierce; and his flight this time was, I hoped, genuine.

As I resumed my place in the alder tree, there to wait for Raffles to join me, a shot rang out from the direction of the road. I lost my grip on the branch from the shock, and fell awkwardly to the ground. In a cold dread, I got to my feet and crept towards the sound, keeping hidden behind successive trees.

The sight that met my eyes when the road finally came into view was a relief. Neither Raffles nor the baronet appeared to be injured; indeed, Sir Edmund, leaning out of the carriage window, seemed to be vigorously subjecting his would-be robber to quite a torrent of verbal abuse. As I watched, Raffles tutted audibly and said (perfectly cool!), ‘Well, really, some of the people you meet on the roads have no manners at all. Very well, I shall leave you alone if you’re that determined about the question.’ Upon which he turned his horse and disappeared into the woods on the opposite side of the road.

‘Yes, it was rather amusing,’ said Raffles later, once the carriage had disappeared and I had trudged through the trees to find him. He was sitting on the ground, leaning back against a slender birch tree; I was perched on a root beside him. ‘Despite his brilliant plan, he became so enraged at my impudence in attempting to rob him that he must threaten me with a pistol. He actually fired a warning shot—hence what you heard, Bunny, but there was no harm done. Well, in the end I didn’t even get the “trifles” he had so generously intended to give me. Still, I hope you had more success.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, hastily bringing out the velvet bag and handing it to him. The knowledge that the shot had been only a warning did little to reassure me; this was, without a doubt, a dangerous life that Raffles had chosen to lead.

‘Hmm,’ he said as he examined the contents—a by now rather disordered mix of things, both money and jewellery. ‘Yes, this will do very nicely. I think I shall go back up to town for a few weeks on the proceeds of this; it’s time I put in another appearance there. You might come with me, Bunny.’

I mumbled something about having still too many debts to pay.

‘Well, I dare say you can make a start on them with this,’ said Raffles, smiling. He had divided the morning’s proceeds into two equal parts, and now gave one of these to me.

I held up my hands in protest. ‘Oh, no, Raffles, I couldn’t,’ I said. ‘It was only because of me that you lost the money you’re replacing with these—I can’t take half of them as well.’

Raffles sighed. Turning away from me, as though rather embarrassed by the argument, and addressing the ground, he said, ‘Bunny, it’s only because of you that I have got these things at all. What with that man holding me up at gunpoint, I could never have got away fast enough to chase the servant through the woods as well. These are no less than your just deserts.’ Now he looked back towards me, and his blue eyes glinted. ‘In any case, if you still feel I’ve given you more than you deserve,’ he added, ‘you shall simply have to go on assisting me in future.’

I was so taken aback by this that at first I could say nothing. Go on assisting him—make today’s adventure not simply an isolated lapse, one stain on an otherwise blameless character, but turn highwayman in truth—perhaps for good!

I glanced again at the look in his eyes, and knew that I could do nothing less.

Wordlessly, I picked up the little pile of things.

‘Well, if you still won’t come with me to London,’ he said, after a while, ‘I’d advise you to find some permanent lodging in this neighbourhood, or somewhere nearby. Establish for yourself a really respectable local character. That’s what we shall need, you know, when I make my reappearance.’ And he gave me a perfectly roguish grin.


	3. Chapter 3

‘Raffles,’ I said, leaning my head back against the tree and pulling my coat more closely round me, ‘how did you come to this life? What made you turn highwayman?’

It was some four or five months since the first robbery in which I had taken part. Raffles had returned from town; I had found lodgings in a quiet little cottage, where I was by now making quite a success of things as the local eccentric literary man, and from time to time I would go from here to see him, or he come to visit me in the village.

‘Pretty nearly the same thing that made you do so, dear rabbit,’ he said, with an ironical little smile. ‘I needed the cash. Things had got rather dire in town, as you know all too well how things can. Well, one night just at the time when the situation looked its bleakest I was riding over Hampstead Heath, watching out for robbers as one must do in such a lonely spot as that, and I thought to myself what an easy time of it they must have; only to go and talk to a man (there’s no need to use violence, although you may threaten it), and so simply to get as much money as they could wish for! And in the meantime, what fantastic stories are told about them. Between the excitement of such a life, and the solution to my material problems, it seemed ideal.’

‘And so, the next time you visited the Heath, you yourself were the robber,’ I said, unable to keep the note of admiration out of my voice. It was an audacity I remembered well from our days at school together. I may have been surprised at first discovering Raffles living the life of a highwayman, but the more I saw of him in that life the less surprised I was. Alas, I fear it did not suit me quite so well; yet I had nonetheless managed to lend Raffles some little assistance on a few occasions subsequent to the one I have described, and he had accepted my help with good grace. My habits out here being tolerably frugal, the situation awaiting me in town was looking less grim by the week; and I had, securely locked in a drawer in my rooms, a very handsome watch and chain of which Raffles had insisted on making a present to me after our last success.

‘Oh, I didn’t risk anything so close to London as that,’ he said. ‘A man of my standing must think of the risk of being recognised, despite the mask. That was why I came out here. It’s an admirable spot, Bunny, and I’m very glad you’re settling well into the neighbourhood. It makes things so much more plausible.’

I grinned. ‘I had to listen to another fascinating discussion at the inn yesterday,’ I said, ‘as to what your true identity might be. You wouldn’t believe how inventive Bess can be on the subject—although I suspect she’s satirising some of the more outlandish suggestions from the others. She ought to write novels.’

He looked over at me. ’A nice complement to your own writing, hmm? Really, if you ever want to settle down on the proceeds of our adventures and become quite respectable, you seem to have found the ideal—’

‘Raffles!’ There was, of course, more than one reason why such a remark should annoy me, although nothing I intended to explain to him at the time. ‘Nothing of the sort. Bess is a wonderfully clever girl, and a good friend, but that is all.’

For some time we sat in silence; occasionally Raffles would reach out to turn the potatoes which he had put on the fire for our supper. He was hiding out in the ruined cottage, and from where we sat we had a view over a wide expanse of flat, moonlit fields. The milder days of spring were now upon us, but these clear nights were still cold, and the bare trees afforded as yet little shelter. I shivered in my heavy coat.

‘In any case,’ I said, after a while, ‘I don’t believe I shall want to settle down and become respectable. What you said earlier about the excitement of such a life as this is perfectly true. I don’t think I could give it up.’

Once again I had not been entirely honest as to my motivations, and once again I had the impression, from his look, that he saw this quite plainly. All he said, however, in a somewhat altered tone, was, ‘I’m glad to hear that, Bunny.’ And he turned his attention back to the potatoes.

*

The series of robberies from which that spot was sadly suffering became, if anything, more frequent and severe over the next few months. For a short time in the middle of May, however, they ceased entirely, as the Gentleman Highwayman made one of his occasional returns to town—accompanied, this time, by his companion. It was strange to go back to the scenes of my old life, now outwardly an honest man, yet shadowed at every moment by the knowledge that, in truth, I had become another and a worse sort of scoundrel than he whom the world had last seen here. Raffles, however, would never let me dwell on such melancholy thoughts for long; he would insist on my going with him to every fashionable party, and often after such affairs we would return together to his rooms and sit up talking together—of quite other things than our exploits in the country—until the small hours.

I returned from town a few days before Raffles, and when I saw him again his mood was changed.

‘We may have been somewhat incautious, Bunny,’ he said, when I asked him what was the matter. ‘I’ve been making a few enquiries in London. It seems that our Sir Edmund, after that little affair last autumn, was so incensed at our victory that he has been stirring up the authorities—with whom he has not a little influence—against all highwaymen, but particularly against the ones who robbed him. He wishes to know who we are, of course, and has been demanding the king send down some men to deal with the situation—and now, it appears, he has found an ally in Captain Mackenzie, who may well be perfectly placed to do just that.’ I had heard something of this man in town—a soldier well-known for his cunning and tenacity.

‘We must leave here, surely!’ I said, in some alarm.

‘Hmm. Perhaps, but there is a greater problem than that. Mackenzie, curse him, has heard of my reputation and has actually been paying attention to the situation, and—to put it shortly, Bunny, he suspects me of being one and the same person as myself.’

This was a greater problem indeed. Raffles’s tone was still as light as it generally was, but he was frowning into the distance as he spoke in a way that convinced me he regarded our predicament as really serious. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we must do something to convince him that you cannot be. You…’ I cast around for ideas, and spoke slowly as a possibility formed itself in my mind—‘you must appear to have robbed someone at a time when you were known to have been elsewhere, under your own name—like Swift Nick riding to York!’

Now he smiled—a grim look enough, but his eyes twinkled in the dim starlight. ‘Just what I was planning, Bunny,’ he said. ‘I doubt whether I’m capable of making it all the way to York in a day to establish my innocence, but I shall think of something.’ He paced three or four times around the little overgrown garden—we were again on the hillside—and when he spoke again, it was abruptly and in the tone of one starting on an entirely new subject. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I, who have been dividing my time quite blamelessly for the last year between London and my country home, have taken it into my head to pay a visit to my dear friend Bunny Manders, who lives in a lovely secluded little spot with a sad reputation for crime. I shall, I suppose, arrive in a couple of weeks or so—and I will make this very clear to Mackenzie before I leave town.’

For all that this sounded as though he intended to give Mackenzie and Sir Edmund the perfect opportunity, I had learnt by now to trust his plans no matter how strange they seemed—or how little of them he told me. Indeed, I heard very little more of this one until Raffles turned up at my lodgings a few weeks later, by broad light of day and lacking the cloak, cocked-hat and pistols which were his habitual costume in other circumstances.

‘Have you planned what we are to do?’ was almost the first thing I asked, once he was sitting down in my front room.

He ignored the question and said instead, ‘Bunny, I think we should go this evening to this inn you’ve been telling me so much about. It seems a perfect place to pick up some local colour, and I really must hear all these stories about your famous highwayman at first hand.’ He smiled brightly, and would say no more about the matter, telling me instead some irrelevant stories about a concert he had been to in London a few days before. I was left to wait and wonder.

*

And indeed, once we reached the inn Raffles joined in the conversation with all the enthusiasm that could be wished from one who had heard much about this notorious place and had never been there. As soon as I had performed the introductions he was happy to ignore me, instead listening intently to a somewhat involved story with which Bill was entertaining a couple of travellers. They had, they said, come from London; I rather suspected Bill of fabricating some of the more outlandish stories he would tell travellers from town, and this one was no exception, but Raffles appeared perfectly fascinated, staring at them over his ale with something akin to that intent gaze I knew so well. I watched him, not a little hurt at his neglect of me; reminding myself, however, that he would no doubt have some plan—as in fact became clear later on.

Presently, one of the London travellers nudged his fellow and whispered something, upon which they both rose and told Bill and Raffles, with some regret, that they must be off. 

Raffles stayed a while longer to listen to some more of Bill’s improbable tales, and then—not long after the imposing grandfather clock which stood in the inn’s hallway had struck eight—he touched me on the arm and suggested that we, too, ought to be going. I followed him outside eagerly, for I thought I had divined some hint as to his plans, and as soon as we were alone I said in a whisper, ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

‘Do what?’ he said, although smiling a little, as we set off back towards my lodgings.

‘I was watching you—you picked that man’s pocket, and then you put back whatever it was you’d taken! Why?’

‘All in good time, Bunny.’ This was said in the same light, breezy tone, but he continued in a lower and more rapid voice, ‘We must make excellent time now, in fact. We must be careful to avoid being recognised, but I shall be glad of your presence, in case I should require backup. The gentlemen with whom we’re dealing may turn out to be more dangerous than they look. Are the horses ready?’  
While he said this, he was rummaging around in the bag he had been carrying all evening; finally he pulled out a long grey wig, more than enough to hide his own tumbled black curls from view, and put it on. Another plunge into the bag produced a slightly outlandish hat, which he placed upon my head. Evidently we had need of more than the usual disguise this evening. 

We set off along the road in the direction of London at a pace which I considered rather unnecessary, flying over the bare heath and finally reaching a place where the road was bordered by a belt of Scotch firs.

‘We’ve almost caught them up, I should think. Keep along here—there’s a little track just the other side of those trees, where we’ll be quite hidden—and follow me, as soon as we see them.’

‘You mean to rob those men you were talking to earlier?’ I said.

‘Exactly, Bunny. No, they’re not far off—we must make haste!’ he added, taking his mask out of a pocket of his velvet coat and tying it round his head.

As Raffles had predicted, it was not long before we caught up to the two travellers in their coach. Well-practised as we were at this game by now, Raffles rode round in front of the coach to bar its way, and began on his usual greeting while I stood guard to cut off any possibility of escape.

‘Yes, that watch will do nicely,’ he said once the situation had been made clear to our victims, pistol in one hand as he held out the other for the goods. ‘You’re a very reasonable fellow.’ He examined the watch face closely. ‘Yes, eight o’clock,’ he said, as though to himself, but loud enough for me to hear. ‘It agrees with mine. Very good. You must have wound it up recently?’

‘Well, yes, I did,’ the man said, looking rather confused. This was clearly neither a manner nor a subject of preoccupation that he expected from a highwayman. ‘I set it by the grandfather clock at the inn.’

Raffles nodded seriously. ‘Very wise of you,’ he said. ‘You see, if it’s not showing the correct time, I can’t be sure it’s working properly, and if it is not working properly its value to me is really very little. Half the ones I am given along this road—but I digress. Have you anything else for me?’

The second man, leaning forward in the carriage, appeared to have got the idea of things. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I mean to say, I have a watch too, but it’s dreadfully unreliable. You wouldn’t want it, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t,’ said Raffles, in an affected tone. ‘Well, then, gentlemen, I think that will be all. Good night, and a safe journey back to town.’ And so he left them, I following in some perplexity.

You may imagine how curious I was for an explanation of this strange episode when, at length, we found a temporary resting-place amongst the trees alongside the road.

He sat down on the ground by my side and burst out laughing. When he had recovered his composure, and taken off his wig, he said, ‘It’s as well to have a reputation like mine if you’re to attempt that sort of trick. I am an eccentric gentleman, here as anywhere else, and it was quite true about not taking watches unless I can prove they’re in working order. But surely you can see what I did?’

I nodded slowly. ‘You took the man’s watch back at the inn—set it to the wrong time—gave it back to him, and then reminded him of the time when you took it, so that you’ll have been definitely seen in the wrong place to have committed the crime! Raffles, it was a brilliant scheme.’ 

He grinned at me—he was not insensible to such praise. ‘I fixed both watches, and made sure that the second fellow’s really was terribly unreliable, which should help to confuse the situation when they return to town, or when they next come across a clock on their journey. Between that, the imperfection of memory, and the difference between local time out here and London time, they shan’t notice anything out of order.’

‘I see. But how will this help us? Raffles, were they agents of this Mackenzie who suspects you?’

‘Not in so many words,’ he said carefully, ‘but I’ve no doubt that word of what has happened this evening will get back to him. They left a companion at the inn, too—I don’t know if you noticed her, a very sharp-looking young lady—so, once they have conferred together, both parts of my little contrivance should reach London intact. I think we’ve done rather well, Bunny.’

He held out his hand for me to help him to his feet, and I obliged. ‘I think we have,’ I said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The apocryphal story of the overnight ride from London to York that provided an alibi for a highway robbery is popularly associated today with Dick Turpin, but this connection probably wasn’t made until the nineteenth century, and the story is older than that. Bunny attributes it to the seventeenth-century highwayman John ‘Swift Nick’ Nevison, as reported by Daniel Defoe in ‘A Tour through England and Wales’ (1724).


	4. Chapter 4

Perhaps it was not enough; for myself, I believe Raffles’s little stunt probably made Mackenzie or some other London authority so impatient as to give up the attempts at subtlety and go after the quarry directly. In any case, a company of the king’s men arrived in the village about two weeks later.

I had been shut up in my rooms at the cottage, working on a particularly involved part of my latest story, and had seen neither my lawful neighbours nor Raffles for several days; so I heard nothing of this new development until Bess appeared at my door, looking so distressed that I invited her in at once to sit down.

The inn had been a scene of constant chaos since they had arrived, she said. ‘I’m used to busy days, of course, but nothing like this. You don’t know how good it is to get away somewhere quiet for a while.’ She sighed and appreciated the silence for a few moments, before becoming suddenly serious as she recollected what she had come here to tell me. ‘Harry, they mean to track down the highwayman and kill him. I don’t know how things have gone in London—I suppose that Sir Edmund has been throwing money around…’

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ I murmured.

‘In any case, that’s it. It shouldn’t be a bad thing—I know, I do know he is a criminal and deserves punishment for what he’s done, but the thought of the whole company of them just going out and shooting him down—’

‘It wouldn’t be fair,’ I said, attempting to hide my alarm at her words. ‘Not sporting.’

She nodded. ‘Exactly.’

We discussed the situation for a while; after which I gave Bess a piece of a seed-cake which I had been saving for inspiration and sustenance during late-night writing sessions, and sent her on her way to run her errands in the village.

Only when the door had closed behind her did I allow myself to react fully to what she had told me. I practically staggered backwards, and sat down heavily on the settle, burying my head in my hands. My first impulse was to go now, heedless of the danger of being seen, and warn Raffles; but a few moments’ thought persuaded me that it would be far wiser to go first to the inn—which, I hoped, I could still do without suspicion—and see if I could find out anything more of who these men were and what were their plans. I would be of more use to Raffles that way.

What I heard there only heightened my horror. I found a convenient place from which to listen under one of the back windows; an occasional glance through it revealed a tall man with an impressive head of grey hair—this, I took it, was the Captain Mackenzie of whom I had heard so much lately—pacing back and forth across the middle of the room, speaking to a party of redcoats assembled around the chairs and tables, gesturing as he walked to emphasise the points he made. The sound of his voice was dulled a little by the closed window, but I could make out the main substance of it, which was this: he believed that Raffles did not know they were there, and would therefore go about his business as he usually did; eventually, he would either commit another robbery or come to the village, where they had seen him visiting of an evening (my blood froze at this); they would be in wait for him, along the high road and at the inn, and had, therefore, only to keep waiting. In the meantime, Mackenzie believed that the robber had an accomplice in the village, and he wished for the men to set about finding this person.

I had no time to react to this, for almost as soon as Mackenzie had finished speaking, one of the inn’s ostlers came around the corner of the building towards my hiding place. He stopped, eyes narrowing, as he saw me.

‘Mr Manders?’ he said. ‘Now, what are you doing over there? Everything all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said in some confusion. ‘I—came to see Bess.’

The man gave a rather nasty little laugh. ‘She’s not here,’ he said. ‘Ran off to the village hours ago. She wouldn’t hang about, with them around, and I wouldn’t neither, if I was you.’ So saying, he nodded towards the room into which I had been looking.

‘No, I see that,’ I said, and beat a hasty retreat.

Confused thoughts whirled through my brain as I returned to my lodgings. Why, I asked myself, was Mackenzie so sure that Raffles did not know he was here? Raffles generally managed to know most of whatever went on in the neighbourhood that was relevant to his own existence, and in any case he always did keep several steps ahead of any opponent; I had been sure that he would have found out somehow. But perhaps he really did not know… in which case, I must go and warn him.

I slipped out of the cottage shortly after sunset, and made my way to the little wood in which I had first found Raffles all those months ago, and where he had once again made his camp. He had hidden it rather better this time, and I spent some time stumbling around in the dark, tripping over odd tree roots and stones, before he heard the noise and came to find me.

Standing at the edge of the wood, watching the ghostly fields under the moon, I told him everything I had learnt.

When I had finished, he laughed lightly and said, ‘Well, then. Thank you, Bunny; I knew they were here, of course—I would be a poor highwayman if I did not watch the roads more keenly than a hawk—but I didn’t know exactly what they were planning. Well, if they mean to catch me when I either rob someone or go to the village, I shall simply do neither until they give up. There’s no need even to run away.’

‘There’s no reason not to!’ I said. ‘Really, Raffles, I think the safest thing is for us both to flee at once.’

‘Upon the contrary,’ he said, beginning to pace up and down under the dark trees, ‘there could be no clearer signal to show them who my accomplice is than your suddenly disappearing just now. No, the safest thing for you is to remain in the village and your character of a quiet and blameless author. Take a little interest in their activities, if you feel up to it; it would make wonderful material for your adventure stories, I’m sure.’ He passed where I was standing as he said this, and looked towards me; and his smiling eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘As for me… well, I admit I can’t remain forever where the king’s men know me to have been, but I detest the thought of simply slipping quietly away from them like some hunted animal. If I’m to be chased down, I shall make them do it properly—and get away in the end, Bunny! In any case, if you’re to stay here I can hardly run off and leave you in the lurch.’

He continued to walk up and down in silence for some time, apparently thinking the situation through, glancing occasionally at me where I still stood, motionless, a few steps from the trees.

After a while he stopped in front of me and said, ‘Bunny, you’re not happy.’

I met his eyes. ‘I don’t like you to run such risks,’ I said, a little reluctantly. ‘I see that they are necessary, to a point, but even so… and how will it go for me in the village, sitting there right under their noses? I dare say my nerve will break utterly, and then they shall find us both.’

‘Oh, Bunny.’ He placed his hands on my shoulders. ‘What is this life for, if not the danger of it? All the excitement and the romance is there. You knew that when first you agreed to help me—and, Bunny, it was not for nothing that I have accepted that help. Do you understand me?’ His eyes were more blue than ever.

It was not, of course, for any of these things that I had entered so eagerly upon the lawless life I now led, and I had known that since the start. It had all been for him—and for him, now, I must and would face the present danger without fear. I nodded slowly, and attempted a smile.

‘Then have courage,’ he said, ‘as you always have,’ and he kissed me.

It was a clear night, and the merest hint of a breeze blew through the summer leaves. When I opened my eyes, the stars that filled the sky above us seemed so bright it might have been day, and for a few moments there was no thought of any trouble or peril in my mind.

*

I hurried back across the starlit fields, my mind in not a little confusion. Assured as I now was of my own ability to remain hidden in plain sight for as long as the king’s men remained in the village, the fear that they would somehow find Raffles persisted, and it was not pleasant to have this thought continuously intruding on my mind as I tried to make sense of the discovery that Raffles returned the feelings I had harboured ever since the first night I found him. I think it was because of this mental confusion, and the exhaustion it produced, that I did not keep as sharp an eye on my surroundings as I should have done, and did not see the man waiting in the shadow of the first building I passed until it was too late.

‘So it was you!’ he said, as I struggled vainly in his grasp. I recognised the voice of the ostler whom I had spoken to at the inn earlier that day.

‘I don’t know what you mean—let me go!’ I cried, trying to kick him in the shins. He dodged backwards, but did not loose his hold.

‘We’ll see about that, I think,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

He was clearly stronger than I was, and I had no choice but to let him lead me back towards the village. He took me to the inn, which stood in silence with all its windows dark; evidently the main part of Mackenzie’s company had gone elsewhere for the night.

The ostler told me as much as he led me up the staircase, adding, ‘They’ll be very pleased to find we’ve got the accomplice they’ve been looking for, I’ve no doubt. Your friend might not be so pleased, though. Might come looking for you. Wouldn’t that be fun?’

The room in which I was locked was a small bedroom at the back of the building; I did not recognise it. I tried the door as soon as I was left alone, but the ostler was standing guard outside and soon put a stop to my attempts at lock-picking; a glance showed one of the redcoats in the yard beneath the window, blocking my only other way of escape.

I sat down on the bed, and waited; there seemed nothing else to do. I kept my eye on the man in the yard, in case he should grow tired enough to leave his post, but he remained stubbornly in place. What felt like several hours passed; I could not say what the real amount of time was, only that it was still dark when I heard voices outside the door. One was the ostler’s, still standing guard; but my heart leapt as I recognised the other as belonging to Bess.

After a little more apparently heated argument—I could not make out the words—the door opened, and Bess appeared, carrying a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.

‘I’ve brought you some food,’ she said, and closed the door behind her. She put the things down on a little table, turned around, and said in a whisper and in quite a different tone, ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. I know what’s happened. I’m going to help you escape.’

‘How?’ I said, also in a whisper. There was no time for lengthy explanations or thanks.

‘Get out of the window,’ she said, ‘in five minutes’ time. Meet me outside. I’ll take care of the guard.’

I nodded. Raising her voice, she continued, ‘Right then, I’ll come back later to take the things away. And don’t try anything, Harry, it’s not safe.’

As soon as she was gone, I set about tying sheets together—they had not been removed from the bed, which I thought rather an oversight—and soon had a serviceable rope. I looked out of the window, and saw Bess creeping along the side of the building, a stout iron cooking pot in her hands. I guessed what she meant to do, of course, but still could not help flinching slightly when, having approached my guard in perfect silence, she hit him over the head with the pot and watched him collapse with rather a satisfied grimace.

I has already tied my makeshift rope to the bedpost, and in another few moments my feet touched the cobblestones. She ran to meet me.

‘You’ll have to go quickly,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where the others have gone. They might be back soon.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Bess, I can’t thank you enough. Will you be safe, staying here?’

She grinned. ‘I shall be found, when they do return, trying to help that poor man recover—he will recover, by the way, I didn’t hit him that hard—he and my loyal self both having been overpowered by the terrible ruffian who escaped our clutches. Then they’ll go after you, I suppose. I’ll be fine.’

I returned the smile. ‘Then I must go,’ I said.

We stopped at the gate, and I turned to bid her farewell. ‘Harry,’ she said, a little hesitantly, ’give him my good wishes.’

‘Of course I will,’ I said, and turned away into the night.

I crept out of the village under cover of darkness, intending eventually to leave the road, double back and go the long way round to return to the wood. I could neither see nor hear any sign of pursuit, but with no idea where Mackenzie and his men might be I was constantly expecting them to appear.

It was but a few moments later—I could not have been more than a hundred yards from the inn—that I heard the dreaded sound of hoofbeats coming along the road behind me. Swiftly, I jumped the low wall and hid behind it; but the horseman had already seen me, and he drew up beside my hiding-place.

‘There’s no need to hide, Bunny—not at the moment, in any case.’

I leapt up. ‘Raffles! What are you doing here?’

He dismounted, and gestured for me to follow him a little way away from the road. ‘After you left,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I noticed rather a fuss being made by some people who were evidently searching for me; I crept up on them to find out what was going on, and heard a messenger arrive who informed their leader that you had been captured. I was intending to go and rescue you, but you seem to have deprived me of the chance.’

I told him of my ordeal, and of Bess’s courage in assisting my escape. ‘We must flee now,’ I finished. ‘I don’t know where they are, but—’ He had opened his mouth to reply, but I hushed him with a gesture. ‘Isn’t that…’ I strained my ears to hear the distant sound.

‘I rather think it is.’ His face had taken on that keen expression it always did at the thrill of danger, the promise of a confrontation with some worthy enemy. ‘In fact, we had better be on our way very soon indeed—they’ve been searching the country all night,’ he continued, climbing back onto the horse and pulling me up behind him. ‘This admirable animal can outrun them, Bunny, but it won’t be easy.’ He turned round to face me, keeping one hand on the reins, and, smiling in the starlight, said, ‘Well, this will be exciting. Are you ready?’

The hoofbeats of our pursuers were growing louder in the distance; it was an open part of the country that we were in now, and there was no hope but that they would soon see us. I found Raffles’s free hand and gripped it tightly. ‘Of course,’ I said.

A cry sounded behind us as we moved out onto the road; they had found us. Raffles pulled his hand free of mine and waved to them, replying to their shouts with a fearless piece of mockery; then he turned the horse, and we were off.

The minutes that followed are not a memory I look back on with any great fondness. At one point I risked a glance backwards, and saw the company of perhaps half a dozen, led by the fearsome Mackenzie, now less than two fields’ length away. As we, at last, got near a little wood that I hoped might provide some cover, a shot rang out across the field behind.

I forced myself not to look back any more, instead clinging tightly to Raffles; it was some comfort to feel him close to me, and to know that he was not daunted. We had left the road some time ago, and now he seemed to be taking the strategy of an irregular path across the fields, leaping hedges and darting behind any available cover, in an attempt to throw them off as quickly as might be.

After a while the sound of shots, which had continued intermittently for some time, ceased; the shouts and hoofbeats became quieter. I still did not dare risk a look round; but, presently, the men’s voices took on a different tone, and distant though they now were, I caught a distinct sound of dismay and confusion.

‘We’ve lost them!’ I said.

We had ridden in a wide loop round to the other side of the village. ’Wonderful!’ said Raffles, sounding perfectly exhilarated. ‘Can you see anything of them?’

At last I turned round. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not a sign.’

‘Then I think we will carry on for as much distance as is prudent, and stop on that hill above the village. Keep a look out, if you can, and let me know if you spot anything.’

I had nothing to report, all the way to our last hideout; we did seem to have lost them entirely.

‘There, we can rest here for a little while,’ said Raffles, when we arrived at the track that led up the hill to the old ruin. ‘I have, I hope, given the impression that we have made off over there, towards the south; and, hopefully, they will go that way, leaving us to escape at our leisure. Really, Bunny, I think it has all worked out rather well.’

I had sat down on the ground and closed my eyes. I was terribly weary. ‘It hasn’t worked out yet,’ I murmured. ‘We still have to get away from here… how long do you think we can safely stay here?’

He must have caught something in my tone, for he knelt down beside me and cupped my face in his hand. ‘Poor Bunny,’ he said. ‘I daresay you haven’t slept all night. Well, we can stay here long enough for you to rest a little; I’ll wake you if anything happens. There’s time to escape yet.’

That was enough for me; I lay down on my bed of fallen leaves, and must have been asleep within moments.

I woke to the sound of a thrush singing in the distance and Raffles murmuring, ‘I think you’d better wake up now, my dear Bunny,’ in my ear. He was sitting on the ground beside me; at some point he had taken off his cloak and covered me with it.

I sat up. ‘Have they come back?’ I said.

‘No,’ he said, grinning. ‘We seem to have flummoxed them utterly; I haven’t heard anything all the while. But it’ll be getting light soon, and it would be as well to be away before then.’

I stood up and went to the cottage’s little window; pushing aside the ivy that covered it, I looked at the familiar landscape spread out below. The moon had set, and the scene was suffused with the merest hint of that faint grey light that precedes the summer dawn.

Raffles moved over to stand beside me, and put his arm about my waist. ‘Well,’ he said, presently, ‘shall we go?’

For answer I turned round in his arms and kissed his cheek.

A few minutes afterwards, the ruined cottage on the hillside stood deserted as it had ever been; in all the lonely scene there were only the thrushes and blackbirds to greet the sun on its path. Their joyous songs sounded across the fields and woods, and no other sound disturbed their perfect harmony, unless there were still a faint echo of hoofbeats fading into the distance.

*

Of where we went, and of what our life has been since then, I will say no more. As I write, I realise that I can hardly publish something that contains quite so many immoral admissions, but I hope that this story may eventually see the light of day, and if it does—well, then, the reader may be able to bring to mind certain sensational events, never explained at the time, which may not be entirely unconnected with this narrative. In any case, I can no longer doubt that this life has provided me with as much material for adventure stories as I could ever wish for—and much more, besides.


End file.
